Bohetzad was not discouraged with so dry an answer, but still insisted with politeness, and even earnestness, for a more satisfactory reply. He who appeared to be the leader of the troop then presented to him the point of his spear, and said,
"Go on your way, audacious fellow! otherwise, if your curiosity becomes more impertinent, be assured it will cost you your life."
This insolent behaviour excited the indignation of the King. He went up to the knight who thus threatened him, with that air of confidence and that commanding tone, the habit of which he had acquired in the exercise of absolute power.
"Slave of my throne!" said he to him, "dost thou not know Bohetzad? But, had I been only a common man, after speaking to you in so modest and friendly a manner, ought you to have threatened me with death?"
At the very name of Bohetzad, the knights alighted and prostrated themselves on the earth.
"Sire," said one of the oldest of them, "pardon an answer which we could not think addressed to the greatest monarch of the earth; for it was very possible not to recognize your Majesty in a hunting dress, and without attendants."
"Rise," said the King, "and gratify my curiosity. Who is the person in that litter, and whither are you conducting it?"
"Sire," answered the knight, "it is the daughter of Asphand, your Grand Vizier: we are conducting her to the Prince of Babylon, to whom she is going to be married."
During this, the daughter of the Vizier, uneasy on account of the delay, presented her head at the curtain of the litter, in order to get information, and was perceived by Bohetzad. Whatever pains she had taken to prevent herself from being seen, her extraordinary beauty struck the Sovereign. His heart received a fatal wound: his passion, arrived at its height, aspired after gratification from the very moment of its existence; and Bohetzad, determined to make sure of the object of it, made use of his absolute authority, and spoke thus to the conductor of the litter: